CC Candidates Promise to Give “Face to the Faceless” – Quentin Cohan

Eschewing standard rhetoric, College Council Co-Presidential Candidates Taylor Swanson ’16 and Avery Bluth ’16 presented their platform at this week’s presidential debate in which they promised to give a “face to the faceless” students on campus. “Every year somebody promises to give a voice to the voiceless on campus, but we wanted to distance ourselves from that tired platform,” Swanson said in an interview after the debate, “we wanted to do something different, and this is a important issue.”

The pair wanted to shed light on a group of students on campus who so often can’t speak (or hear, smell, see, or taste) for themselves. “Too often these students are walking into walls they can’t see, or missing important class discussions they can’t hear,” Bluth proclaimed at the debate, “is that the sort of community we want?” The two were also very adamant in their stance against other candidates’ calls for increased face-to-face dialogue on campus saying “that sort of forum by definition leaves out the people for whom we claim to speak,” and that “separation is inherently unequal, so yeah, that’s awks for you guys.”

After the debate I tried to speak with Sam Hitchcock ’17, one such faceless student, but he could not be reached for comment because he has no ears or mouth. Bluth and Swanson, answering for him, said “All of the faceless students on campus are thrilled we are running in order to represent them and illuminate their plight.” When I asked how they could be sure of that, they responded “It’s a CC presidential debate, what’s not to be thrilled about?”